york. let's just remind everyone, we've got this huge night of town halls tonight on cnn starting at 7:00 eastern with five people who would like to become the next president of the united states, so stay tuned here. in the meantime, let's go to washington. "the lead with jake tapper" starts right now. president trump now going to court to keep you from seeing his finances. "the lead" starts right now. new today, the president of the united states also now tweeting about impeachment, as democrats are just minutes away from debating the next step after the mueller probe. easter carnage. several americans killed. now we know one of them is a fifth grader from washington, d.c. and authorities are still detonating bombs after one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the world since 9/11. plus, 19 for '20. another contender jumping into the democratic battle royal, as some candidates get ready to rumble in one of the biggs cnn town hall events ever.

welcome to the lead. i'm jake tapper. let's start with the politics lead. house democrats are right now preparing for a conversation they're going to have at the end of this hour to discuss whether or not the house of representatives will seek to impeach president trump. many democrats on the record are saying they believe special counsel robert mueller laid out a compelling case that president trump, indeed, obstructed justice. a matter that mueller seemed to kick to congress. now, on that other matter, conspiracy with russia to interfere in the 2016 election, mueller, of course, said his investigation did not find sufficient evidence of that. but president trump's attorney, rudy giuliani, is telling me, quote, there's nothing wrong with taking information from russians. it depends on where it came from! the latest in an evolution or devolution in trump team claims, regarding interactions with the russians. it started with what we were

told in november 2016. you might recall, hope hicks telling the public, quote, it never happened. there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign. then there was president trump in february 2017. >> i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, to person i deal with does. >> no person in july 2017. we have, of course, learned about that infamous trump tower meeting back in july of 2016. now, initially, donald trump jr. in a misleading statement drafted, at least in part, by his father publicly claimed that in the meeting, quote, we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children. we soon learned, of course, that the meeting was set up with the express primary purpose of getting dirt on hillary clinton from a russian government lawyer. we now know, according to mueller, while there is not sufficient evidence to prove any criminal conspiracy, the russians did, indeed, work to elect donald trump. they spread information, often

false, on social media to help trump reaching, according to mueller, tens of millions of americans. they illegally obtained democrats' e-mails and publicly released them. and the special counsel noted that the trump campaign expected it would benefit electorally from the russians' help. not a crime, according to mueller, but not ethical, at least according to republican senator, mitt romney, who said in a statement that he was, quote, appalled that people on the trump campaign welcomed that help from russia. and that leads us to this latest positioning by team trump on relations with russians bearing gifts. >> any candidate in the whole world in america would take information -- >> from a foreign source? from a hostile foreign source? >> who says it's even illegal? there's nothing wrong with taking information from russians. >> there's nothing wrong with taking information -- >> it depends on where it came from? >> from november of 2016 until now. a journey from, "we never even

communicated with russians" to "there's nothing wrong with accepting help from the russians." separate and apart from impeachment, a question for democrats and republicans on capitol hill, what does this latest declaration mean for american elections now? what signal is the trump team now sending to russia and china, iran, any other country that might want to interfere in the 2020 election? today, president trump is dismissing talk of impeachment and fuming behind the scenes. cnn's kaitlan collins kicks off our coverage. >> reporter: president trump was all smiles in front of the cameras during the easter egg roll today. >> this is a beautiful day. >> reporter: but behind the scenes, sources say he's fuming over the release of the special counsel's report and the portrait it paints of a dishonest president whose staff refused to carry out his most extreme demands. >> are you worried that your staff is ignoring your orders as the mueller report portrays? >> nobody disobeys my orders.

>> reporter: but the mueller report showed they did, including the white house counsel who refused to fire the special counsel, the attorney general who wouldn't unrecuse himself, the former campaign manager, who ignored his command to tell the attorney general to limit the investigation, and the staff secretary, who wouldn't gauge the loyalty of doj officials. sources now say the president is seeking assurances from his current staff that they're following his orders. that as the president and his business are suing the house oversight chairman, elijah cummings today, in an attempt to block house democrats from getting his financial records. the lawsuit argues cummings has no legitimate legislative reason to subpoena an accounting company tide to trump. and the president's outside attorney, jay sekulow, told cnn, we will not allow congressional presidential harassment to go unanswered. >> good afternoon. >> reporter: democrats say they aren't buying it. >> he's a lot of bluster and in

the end, do those suits go anywhere? no, he ends up withdrawing, he ends up settling, because there's nothing to them. >> reporter: but they're wrestling with another dicey problem. whether the president's behavior justifies impeachment. while some, including house speaker nancy pelosi, have tried to throw cold water on the idea, others aren't ready to walk away yet. >> even if we did not win, possibly, if there were not impeachment, i think history would smile upon us for standing up to the constitution. >> reporter: trump tweeting today that only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment. but later, telling reporters, he's not worried about it. >> are you worried about impeachment, mr. president? >> not even a little bit. >> and kaitlan collins is here with us. kaitlan, the president just tweeted, "isn't it amazing that the people who are closest to me by far and knew the campaign

better than anyone were never even called to testify before mueller. the reason is that the 18 angry democrats knew that they would all say no collusion and only very good things." but if you read the mueller report, kaitlan, on page 117, it says that donald trump jr. declined to be interviewed by the special counsel. so i don't understand this claim by the president. >> well, then you have to look at the people that they did interview. the first campaign manager, corey lewandowski, another campaign manager, paul manafort, the deputy campaign manager, rick gates, steve bannon, and even the president's son-in-law and now senior adviser jared kushner, twice. so the idea that they didn't speak to anyone who was high ranking on the campaign or very familiar with the campaign is just simply not true. because they actually had extensive interviews with a lot of these people that worked on the campaign. >> so who's he talking about? kellyanne conway? >> there were a few people who weren't interview, but there were an extensive amount of interviews this is based off of. so if the president is trying to frame it that the people who were interviewed are simply people who don't like him, like

don mcgahn, it's just simply not the case. >> jen psaki, let me ask you about rudy giuliani latest thing where he told me yesterday that, you know, it's not wrong to accept information from the russians. you know, depending on what it is. that strikes me as a jarring comment. what was your reaction? >> incredibly jarring. i mean, if you read the report and, you know, i read the report. i'm not sure donald trump did. i would bet, from hearing some of the reporting. the list of kind of indiscretions here and events that happened on the campaign is jarring, too. and what rudy giuliani is saying, he's lowering the bar of what is acceptable, or, you know, raising the bar of what's illegal, lowering the bar of what's acceptable. you can argue and some people have that whether or not it was a campaign finance violation, but the fact is, i read it, a lot of democratic friends, independent friends, republican friends had a similar reaction, which is if this is not illegal, it should be.

that's question i would have if i were giving advice to democrats. i would say, come up with a way to make that illegal. so his comment to me was obviously incredibly irresponsible, but it was suggesting that accepting information from a foreign adversary is acceptable, but it shouldn't be. but it's now the bar for the future and that's incredibly dangerous. >> we should note again, he did not find sufficient evidence of criminal conspiracy, so to a degree, the president has been vindicated on that. but there's a difference between legal and illegal and ethical and not ethical. what's your response to what rudy giuliani said? >> i think it's shocking and destructive. because it is now going to be the new norm, right? as i gather, as you said earlier, there's a reason the resident himself and the campaign denied having these contacts, because it was once viewed, not so long in american politics, as damaging, illegitimate, wrong to have these kinds of contacts, including secret contacts with an adversary -- with agents of an adversarial power, including not just providing information,

but providing stolen information and being encouraged to get more stolen information, et cetera. so what rudy's comment to you shows is what -- what it means for me, and what trump's tweet, while they didn't interview, means to me that the house has to go ahead with hearings. and they have to be serious about those hearings. if donald junior wants to talk so much and if he did not talk to special prosecutor, special counsel mueller, i'm sure the house judiciary committee would be happy to have him talk. and if rudy giuliani and if the house leaves this alone now, what rudy said to you would become the new norm. >> there is a world of democrats, i think they're in the minority, but democratic officials who say, we need to play the game that donald trump is playing. we need to attack people the way he's attacking and get in the mud and i haven't heard them say this.

i would imagine if it's okay to do this, why not. and then we all just start running down this road. >> well, that's the biggest concern here. is if you start to say conduct of the campaign is acceptable, it paves the way to become the new norm. with respect to rudy giuliani's comments, i think it's notable that while the president has maintained all along that there was no collusion, his attorneys and his supporters, including giuliani, had gone from initially saying there was no collusion to saying over the course of the past few months, collusion's not a crime. and i think they did that because they were effectively trying to frame the narrative for when the mueller report did become public. and just based on what we had already known through a lot of the reporting, that even if there was not a criminal conspiracy between the trump campaign and moscow, we have countless examples of the trump campaign having been willing to concluded, and hathat is what t special counsel found. that the trump campaign was receptive to receive help from the russians and they understood

they would benefit electorally from that help. sometimes it just didn't pan out in their favor. they went into that infamous june 2016 meeting in trump tower in new york, expecting this that he would receive incriminating information about hillary clinton. ultimately, it was a meeting about adoption policy and u.s. sanctions, so they walked away saying it was a waste of time. but if they had, in fact, gotten what they wanted, it would be an entirely different ball game and perhaps there would be more spot special counsel's report with respect to an actual conspiracy. and then there's the wikileaks information, a lot of which was redacted and that we don't yet know about. >> and kaitlan, the democrats are more focused on the obstruction of justice part of this. and one of the keys in the report is how many times the president told people to do something to get rid of mueller or whatever, and they were not listened to. they -- they ignored what president trump had to say. you asked the president about this earlier today. let's run that sound again. >> are you worried that your staff is ignoring your orders, as the mueller report portrays? >> nobody disobeys my orders. >> "are you worried your staff is disobeying your orders as the

mueller report portrays?" "nobody disobeys my orders." that's not what the mueller report says. >> that's right. there were plenty of people who didn't obey his orders, pause some of these were on the brink of breaking the law. there are several people in this report, in and of itself, not just don mcgahn and jeff sessionses, but corey lewandowski and the staff secretary at the time that did not follow through on what he asked them to do. but what's interesting about the president saying, nobody disobeys my commands, the president is seeking assurances from the people who work for him right now, because so many people have left the white house, they are seeking assurances that they are following his orders. >> people do disobey, and we report a lot on people in the department of homeland security that disobey him. in just minutes, house speaker nancy pelosi is going to try to get democrats all on the same page when it comes to impeaching president trump. she's already trying to send a

strong message. plus, could ignored warnings have prevented one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on churches in sri lanka since 9/11? stay with us. it's not the highlight of fatherhood. but i'd rather be here with my little man than anywhere with migraine. "i am here." and i aim to say that more. aimovig... a preventive treatment for migraine in adults... reduces the number of monthly migraine days. for some, that number can be cut in half or more. the most common side effects are pain, redness or swelling at the injection site and constipation. aim to be there more. talk to your doctor about aimovig.

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our politics lead in about 40 minutes. house democrats are going to hold a conference call to strategize about how to move forward after the mueller report. there is a divide within the house democratic caucus on whether impeachment is the way to go or not. with speaker of the house nancy pelosi writing an email to our democratic colleagues, saying they all, quote, firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth. of course, that's the easy part. cnn congressional correspondent, sunlen serfaty is live for us on capitol hill. and sunlen, house speaker pelosi mentioned impeachment in that email, but didn't specifically endorse it. >> and the speaker has been very

cautious about approaching impeachment in the past. she makes it very clear that she's essentially standing by that approach. in this letter, she does acknowledge that there is division in the caucus over the issue of impeachment, something that has become a thorny issue for democrats since they are not always on the same page. but in this letter, speaker pelosi goes on to say, quote, it is also important to know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings. and pelosi sends this letter at a very important moment for her caucus. they will hop on a conference call in just about an hour to discuss the next step, to plot the next step in this po post-mueller world. and comes at a time where more voices are being added to the small, but growing group of those calling for impeachment. so certainly, that will be the message tonight for democrats. >> sunsen serfaty, thank you so much. take a listen to democratic kang

w congresswoman, eleanor holmes norton, she represents washington, d.c., talking about impeachment earlier today. >> but to assume that impeachment is going to occur when it has almost never occurred in the history of the united states and we have a recent example, where impeachment failed are president clinton is to go to a road to nowhere, and we will go to the people with nothing to show for having been in the majority for two years. >> congresswoman holmes norton is not a trump lover, but she's saying impeachment is a road to nowhere and you'll go before the voters in 2020 and you don't have anything to show for it. do you agree? >> this is exactly the political risk. and i think she outlined it pretty clearly. i think democrats are not in disagreement over whether trump should be impeached. i think the vast majority think he should be kbreecimpeached, h done enough to be impeached and he shouldn't be out of office. is it better to wait for the election? is it riskier and are we hurting ourselves politically if we go through an impeachment process. have a vote in the house, and it

fails in the senate, does that empower trump more. that's a part of their political calculation, which i think it's smart for them to think about. but there's been a lot of kind of dramatic, there's divisions, there's not actually that much division. the big discussion is about the pace and the approach. so, you know, do they do a series of hearings or do they go immediately to it? i think most democrats who are in leadership, who are leading committees want to do hearings first. in part because they think the public case needs to be built. a lot of the stuff in the mueller report wasn't totally shocking, as it's been reported. and they need to have people testify, have dramatic moments, so that the public is behind them a little bit. or they can see that. and i think that's part of the calculation that they're making >> bill, one of the other fears, as you heard congresswoman holmes norton say is that the american people, if there are all of these hearings, in which all of these horrible stories about donald trump come out, there aren't the same hearings and attention, at least, on

health care, jobs, things that voters out there care about more than they do about impeachment proceedings. >> i think the democrats are overthinking this. the democratic presidential candidate will lay out a program on health care, jobs, and all of that. it's probably not going to make it through the senate or get signed by the president. so, fine, they can have a hearing here and go to the floor of the health care bill there. i don't think this is asking too much of them. and i think the dynamic now is going to set in. if you take the report seriously, it's very hard to say there shouldn't at least be hearings to say what happened, with fact witnesses like don mcgahn. once three hearings happen, you can do them faster or slower. at some point, uyou'll have to say, we've had the hearings, what do we do. maybe you agree you can censure the president if you can get some republicans onboard. but the idea this is going to fizzle out, i don't buy that. and i don't think the democrats will pay a price for going in an orderly, very legalistic way, towards impeachment, perhaps voting for impeachment, it will fail in the senate and we'll have a presidential campaign.

i don't think this damages the democrats in any important way. >> i also want to talk about stephen moore, the president's pick to serve on the federal reserve board. sabrina's k-file found a column that he wrote in which he assailed the idea of women participating as referees in professional sports. he attacked female athletes pushing for equal pay, saying they wanted equal pay for inferior work. he mocked a reader who called his column sexist. in 2002, stephen moore wrote, here's the rule change i propose, no women anything, there is, of course, an exception to this rule, women are permitted to participate if and only they look like bonnie bernstein. the fact that bonnie knows nothing about basketball is entirely irrelevant, unquote. he later wrote that bernstein, who was a cbs sports journalist at the time should wear halter stops. moore said this is a spoof, he's just joking, he has a sense of humor. what do you make of it? >> i think people are struggling to find out what the joke is in the columns that he wrote. it's not some flippant comment

he made. he went out of his way to express these views, whether he thought they were funny or not, and to do so in not just one isolated case, but in multiple writings. and i think this is reflective of a broader attitude towards women that emanates from the top level of the white house. the president himself has made a lot of derogatory comments when it comes to women. and so for many people, they magt s might say there was a problem here in this vetting this candidate. but quite frankly, this white house has shown time and again when they have these nominees that have come under controversy, the administration has stood by them. and that's because the president himself believes that these are the people he wants for the job. and there are other challenges with stephen moore and republicans have raised concerns over the fact that he is a political operative and so that is at odds with what you traditionally see for nominees, traditionally independent federal reserve. and i find it challenging to think that there would be enough support for him in a republican-led senate. >> and the president announced today that herman cain, who was

also up for a position on the federal reserve, has taken himself out of the running. republican senator told me, herman cain just didn't have the votes. >> herman cain was never going to make it that far. republicans on capitol hill knew that and they were making it pretty clear to the white house. people inside the white house got that message. so they thought between the two of these, stephen moore was more likely to advance, to actually have an attempt to get on it and go under confirmation. they did not think that herman cain was going to make it anyways. >> in addition to the questions about his qualifications, questions about whether or not he had sexually harassed women in his previous position, he denies that. everyone, stick around. new details on the americans killed in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks since 9/11. and reports of ignored warning signs by the government of sri lanka. could the easter sunday attacks on christian have said stopped? stay with us. who's idea was this?

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our world lead now. cnn learning this afternoon that a fifth grade boy from washington, d.c., is one of the almost 300 fatalities and one of the deadliest terrorist attacks since 9/11. u.s. intelligence officials tell cnn that the series of coordinated explosions that rocked sri lanka on easter sunday were likely inspired by isis. at least four americans are currently among the 300 dead. cnn's sam kiley reports this all comes as the sri lankan government is now apologizing for failing to heed intelligence warnings from both the u.s. and india. >> reporter: today, new video shows one of the alleged suicide

bombers carrying what church officials believe is a bomb in his backpack. he pats a toddler on the head as he crosses the church courtyard. sri lankan tv identifying him as a suspect in one of the bombings. without hesitation, he strides on, enters a side door of st. sebastian's church close to the altar. the next frame, priests say, shows him exploding his bomb, killing at least 122 people who were celebrating easter mass. >> it blasted in such a way there were children and women, all close by, and all were blown up almost. so we had hundreds, more than 1 hurricane people who were killed on the spot. the sri lankan military says at least six suicide bombers have thought to have attacked two other churches and three five-star hotels within minutes of one another. all around the same time. local and u.s. intelligence officials believe that this slickly coordinated plot is the work of an international

isis-inspired terror group. and it could strike again soon. a security dragnet was thrown across the entire country, with a state of emergency announced, as they uncovered more of the murderous plot. in colombo, a bomb squad performed a controlled explosion of a suspicious van near st. anthony's church, one of the scenes of sunday's attack. and a 6-foot pipe bomb was found close to the airport, along with nearly 90 bomb detonators at the city's bus stop. sri lanka's government had warnings from u.s. and india that attacks were imminent and publicly apologized for failing to heed them. >> very, very sorry. >> reporter: on april the 11th, a memo from the deputy inspector general of police advised sri lankan officials to raise security due to a potential attack. the government spokesman can't hide the truth from the families of more than 500 injured and nearly 300 dead, four of them americans. >> as the government, we have to say and we have to apologize to

the families and the institutions about this incident. >> reporter: now the cleanup begins. >> all the people are shouting, weeping, and we can't realize what happened. we can build up our church, but we can't build up our lives. >> now, jake, among the dead, fifth grader, kiran desosa, a young lad from washington, d.c., and dieter kowalski, a young man from denver, colorado. both of them killed in bombings inside one of the five-star hotels, just a few hundred yards from where i'm standing here in colombo, sri lanka's capital. a devastating day for the country and clearly with this state of emergency now coming into force, things could get potentially worse. jake? >> sam kiley in sri lanka, thank you so much for that report. joining me now is former cia counterterrorism analyst, phil

mudd, and former fbi supervisory special agent, josh campbell. excuse me, josh, excuse me. bottom line, was this an intelligence failure? i think it's too soon to say that, jake. when i was in the fbi, i served on one of our global teams responsible for conducting investigations in southeast asia and we routinely shared information with our counterparts. we don't know yet if this is information that came from western officials, but if that's the case, i've seen these types of reports that have been handed over sometimes. they're very rich in detail, sometimes they're very vague. we don't know what information was passed on yet. once we get a greater sense of what that is, then we'll be in a better position to decide whether this is a failure. >> i apologize for the sneeze. it is pollen season here in washington, d.c. phil, i want to ask about what josh just said. because sometimes you hear, there's a warning and the government didn't hear it. from what we know about the warning that the united states provided, that india provided, is that enough that could have prevented this horrific attack? i mean, as far as i know, it didn't say, these attackers were

going to be targeting christians worshiping on easter. >> if you want to study a warning, i would just ask you to look for a few specifics. you have time, place, people, device. those four characteristics. if you have a general warning something might be coming up in a country of 22 million, 23 million people, in my intelligence world, you have to have specificity to go to officials and say, here's the place you want to guard, here's the kind of device you might want to look at, here's what the cell looks like. a generic warning might sound ugly to the general public. in my world, that's a dime a dozen. you need more than that. >> and the level of coordination here was extraordinary. three different cities, eight different explosions, churches were targeted, western hotels were targeted. what does that tell you about who conducted this? >> yeah, no question this was highly sophisticated. and we've heard reports that this may have been isis inspired. i tend to suspect that's probably the case here based on a number of characteristics. there's a difference between directed and inspired. we haven't seen an actual claim of responsibility coming out from isis.

but this is the one thing that we've all worried about, people going to the battlefield and where do day go next? where do they take that hatred? and this is early on, but it appears this type of inspiration was at least at play here. >> phil, take a listen to the secretary of state mike pompeo speaking today on the threat from isis and other terrorist groups. >> the destruction of the caliphate was important and it mattered. and the takedown of these threats from other geographies as well. but, sadly, this evil exists in the world. >> "we have taken down the threat substantially, but obviously, the evil does exist in the world." is there -- i mean, assuming this group was isis inspired, which is the best that u.s. intelligence thinks now, i mean, does that -- is there anything that changed vis-a-vis syria and iraq and the defeat of isis and the caliphate, the geographical caliphate there versus sri lanka. does it have any effect? >> you have to believe, despite this event today, that the threat diminishes over time.

for example, in europe compared to where we were three, four years ago, you can't get to syria to train. so by definition, you'll have fewer people coming back with high tech skills. that said, this idea that a geographical fate and the decline of a geographical fate is the end game, isis and kaal qaeda were ideas that can be disseminated on social media. that's seen right now in sri lanka, so let's not focus too much on statements about the decline of caliphate. i want to see the decline of the idea. >> phil mudd and josh campbell, thank you so much. we are just hours away from one of the busiest nights and the biggest nights of the 2020 campaign so far, as the democratic field keeps growing. stay with us. en it comes to rede sugar in your family's diet, coke, dr pepper and pepsi hear you. we're working together to do just that. bringing you more great tasting beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all. smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels and reminders to think balance. because we know mom wants what's best. more beverage choices, smaller portions, less sugar.

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the 2020 lead today, a swelling field of democratic presidential candidates with 19 names now in the race and more on the way. and a youtube video released this morning, marine corps veteran turned congressman seth moulton of massachusetts announced that he, too, is running in 2020. but as he launches his campaign, a different high-profile name may quickly steal the spot. as cnn's phil mattingly reports, we're learning how former vice president joe biden is likely planning his campaign rollout this week. >> reporter: the historically large democratic presidential primary -- >> i would be honored if you'd join me in this mission. >> reporter: -- now adding another candidate in the mix. >> i'm running because i'm a patriot. because i believe in this country, and because i've never wanted to sit on the sidelines when it comes to serving it. >> reporter: seth moulton launching his campaign monday. but moulton's entrance won't be the last this week, with the biggest outstanding democratic name ready to greenlight his own campaign.

sources tell cnn vice president joe biden who leads the feel in national and early primary caucus state polling will put an end to the long-run willing he or won't he? biden is expected to announce his candidacy in a video this week, followed by travel to early primary states next week. biden would make it an astounding 20 candidates officially running to take on president trump in 2020, with disparate records, messages, and potential coalitions, a fact that underscores the efforts by candidates like senator elizabeth warren to break out on policy. warren on monday releasing the most sweeping, aggressive plan to curtail the estimated $1.5 trillion in student loan dead, a $1.25 trillion plan to cancel loan debt up to $50,000 for households earning less than $100,000, implement free public college, and expand grants for lower income and minority students for housing, food, and books. >> it's not just paying the tuition. it's how they pay for books. it's how they pay for the

expenses of having a baby taken care of if they already have a child at home or being able to cover commuting expenses. or maybe it's a chance to live in a dorm and have the kind of college experience that other kids get. >> reporter: warren to pitch that plan and more tonight on cnn, when she and four other candidates take part in series of town halls from new hampshire, a prime-time event for five top-tier candidates, all looking to break out of an increasingly expanding pack. >> and jake, senator warren's advisers made clear that she will make crystal clear tonight in the town hall that her lane, the one of in the weeds policy proposals, is boast durable and something that will eventually lead her back into the top tier of candidates. it's a gamble, one they acknowledge, but one they believe, even though there's lagging fund-raising and lagging poll numbers, that will eventually pay off. >> phil mattingly in new hampshire, thank you so much, phil. and speaking of new hampshire, we're learning that biden is planning to visit iowa this

week, but he trails in a new poll of new hampshire democrats out today from the university of new hampshire. 30% of democratic voters in that state say they prefer senator bernie sanders, he's from neighboring vermont, to be the party nominee. 18% go for biden. 15% are with south bend, indiana, mayor pete buttigieg. and then you have senators kamala harris, elizabeth warren, rounding out the top five with 5%, 4%. so i have to say, that is a stronger showing than i would have thought for buttigieg and a -- i mean, second place, it's not bad, but a weaker showing than i would have thought for biden, who has obviously been campaigning for president off and on since 1987. >> right, i think it's still very much a wide open field and it's very difficult to make determinations based on the early polling, especially before any of these candidates appear on the debate stage. now, it's not unusual for bernie sanders or joe biden, the people who have the most name recognition to be at the top of the pack. it has certainly been impressive to many people that mayor pete buttigieg, who is relatively unknown until just a couple of

months ago, as sort of shot to this top tier of candidates in the eyes of many. i think a lot of the questions that will be resolved in the eyes of voters will be twofold. there will be the policy disagreements and what variations on health care or a free college tuition or education, you know, the policy proposals that they will put out. and then, of course, there's the elephant in the room, which is, what will be their approach to taking on donald trump and what are some of the questions around impeachment and the post-mueller debate that they're going to have to contend with as candidates. >> speaking of college loan debt, bernie sanders in 2016 campaigned heavily on a plan of free tuition. elizabeth warren says her new plan goes further, because it adds on getting rid of student loan debt. do you buy her argument that eventually all of these policy rollouts are going to pay off for her? i have to say, 4%, she's from neighboring massachusetts. she also is a national figure and a known entity. that is not as strong a showing

as i would have thought among new hampshire democrats. >> i think that's right. and if you're her team, i think you're trying to find ways to have traction at this point. obviously, she wins the policy primary, but winning the policy primary doesn't typically win the presidential primary. she came out strongly for impeachment. i think that was clearly an effort to gain traction at time when she was not. she also has been spending almost as she's been raising so if you're on her internal team, you're looking at the race right now and you're thinking, we have couple of months to gain traction and really make a move here. she was bernie sanders arguably before bernie sanders was bernie sanders. and she probably should have run four years ago. and she maybe could have won the primary, but that doesn't matter at this point. i think at this point, she has to decide if she can make traction to still be in the race in the fall. >> of course, the inevitable question, who's going to pay for it, will it's student loan dead or college tuition. elizabeth warren preemptively put out a plan to tax what she calls the very rich, and says

that will help with other ways to tax the very rich. take a listen. >> for two cents on the dollar, we could pay for universal child care, universal pre-k, universal college and not back the student loan debt burden for about 43 million americans and still have nearly just short of $1 trillion left over. >> that, of course, will be portrayed if she becomes the nominee by donald trump as she wants to tax you, she wants to tax you, not just the wealthy, but all of you. >> it doesn't seem to be the policy differences between the democrats are going to be dispositive. they're all going to be for some versions of, obviously, expanding health care and helping with tuition and so forth. i guess sanders strikes me as the one who's distinct. i think there's a certain number of -- it will be sanders and probably everyone else, i think. and sanders seems to be the one candidate who's got a real base.

he seems to be sticking right at 30% in the polls. for me the lesson in that new hampshire poll is that this is a wide-open race, in the way that it often isn't. there's often a front-runner, one challenger emerges, it's the front-runner versus the challenger, mondale/heart or something. this one strikes me, sanders will probably stay at 30, but it's almost as likely that someone we've never heard of, buttigieg two months ago, could easily be the main challenger. no joe biden, not elizabeth warren or kamala harris. or it could be a three or four or five-way race with some of those other candidates. maybe seth moulton will take off, and we'll have the moulton/and buttigieg young veterans in their 30s. >> add tulsi gabbard to that. and amy klobuchar will be in the town hall this evening, the senator from minnesota. her argument is that she can win in trump country. she has been a very popular vote getter in minnesota, which almost went for trump, but she's won over trump counties. take a listen to her making this

argument. >> i'm from the middle of the country, i'm the only one in the race that has repeatedly won trump counties and trump districts, to the point where three times in a row, i have won every single congressional district in my state, including the rural ones. >> and for democrats who want to win, that could be a compelling argument. >> and that's what she's saying, essentially, i could beat trump. that's why she's saying she could win those counties. and that's what the trump campaign and the trump white house seems to be more concerned about. if they could run against a bernie sanders, that is essentially their dream. they feel like that's a pretty easy campaign for them to set up. they can draw a stark contrast between the president and people like elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, but not so much with people like amy klobuchar, who has been the one candidate who has not been afraid to say no to some of those policy proposals, like medicare for all and the green new deal. she's been much more moderate on those proposals. is it someone like that that can beat the president? it doesn't seem obviously that they know either way. they don't know if they could go

more extreme and impeach or follow the amy klobuchar route and the trump campaign is kind of banking on them not figuring that out until the end. >> seth moulton is talking about how he did four tours in iraq, a marine veteran. what do you make of his chances? he's new today, so i want to give an opportunity to chew over him a little bit. is he offering something that other candidates are not? >> i think he's just someone who thinks he has nothing to lose. there are some candidates who want to evaluate their profile and he's someone who challenged the establishment and defeat a long-term incumbent, it shows that really anyone can try to use this opportunity to make a name for themselves. >> and you don't want to miss tonight's cnn major town hall event life in manchester, new hampshire. senator amy klobuchar up at 7:00 a.m. eastern, elizabeth warren at 8:00, bernie sanders at 9:00, kamala harris a at 10:00 and pete buttigieg at 11:00 p.m. eastern. in our earth matters day, climate change is having an effect right now. but as cnn's bill weir

discovered, even many of the those americans being hurt right now don't believe that climate change is real. >> reporter: in the heart-sick heartland, the great floods of 2019 are setting the worst kind of records. it was a month ago when heavy snow melted so fast and a bomb cyclone rained so hard, water overwhelmed the army corps of engineers and levees in six states. the floodwaters came with such force, they ripped open grain silos across the midwest, contaminating the crop with toxic water and ruining the livelihood of so many farmers who had been storing their grain in order to survive the trade war with china. most american pharmacy afarms a fully insured against this kind of disaster. and in hamburg, iowa, 70% of the homes had no flood insurance at all. mold is spreading. the ball field is still a lake. and downtown is a ghost town. where the only sign of life on this day is a visitor from the west, here to warn the nation that this is just the beginning.

>> we know, unfortunately, that what we see here today is just a precursor of many, many more intense floods in the future, because of climate change. >> please welcome governor jay inslee. >> reporter: the washington governor is the first person in history to build a presidential campaign around climate change, a topic discussed for about five minutes in the last three presidential debates. >> you need, what is it, 65,000 individual donors to get on a stage at the debate. >> you pet. >> how many you got now? >> we have a ways to go. >> if you keep this topic in the debate, in the minds of voters, even though you're polling less than 1%, is that a victory? or for you, are you really thinking you have a shot at the oval office? >> my intent is to serve as president of the united states. >> reporter: recent polls show that iowa democrats now list climate change next to health care as a top concern. and after disasters like this, you would think even skeptical

republicans might join them. >> so do you have water service here now? >> no. we have no water and no heat. >> reporter: but ron perry down at the risky business auto shop is not buying what the governor is selling. the governor is here because he believes that all of this damage the direct result of climate change. do you see it that way? >> no! absolutely not! i blame it on the corps of engineers, totally. >> you can't expect the army corps to solve this problem if the trump -- when the president of the united states is telling him to ignore clear science. >> how do you convince a guy like ron to vote for you? >> well, i don't know for sure, not every -- i don't expect everyone to vote for me. just well over 50%. >> no, i get that! but, you use the moonshot analogy. when kennedy said, we're going to the moon, republicans didn't argue that there's no moon. and this is a million moonshots put together. >> well, i tell you, the way you do it is you defeat donald trump. donald trump has been telling folks this is a chinese hoax.

and when you have someone that is so willfully ignorant, that person has to be removed from public life. and that's what i intend to do. look, what wins support here is a recognition of economic growth and vitality. the fact that we've got jobs and wind turbines and solar power and electric cars and batteries. you don't have to have an argument about parts per million of carbon if you've got a lot of people going to work. and that's my message. >> reporter: since his state just rejected a tax on carbon, that would be an ambitious future. this is the grim present, a dying town, planting season in peril, and another flood warning in the forecast. bill weir, cnn, hamburg, iowa. >> and our thanks, as always, to bill weir for that report. any moment now, speaker nancy pelosi is going to lead a conference call with house democrats to decide wlp impeachment is the right way forward for the democratic party. stay with us. ♪

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happening now, breaking news. talking impeachment. house democratic caucus is on the phone right now, discussing the mueller report and whether to move forward on trying to remove president trump from office. this comes just hours before five prominent presidential candidates will be asked about it during a cnn town hall event. we're standing by to find out what democrats will decide on impeachmen impeachment. trump sues congress. the president remains defiant as his lawyers go to court to block congressional investigations of his finances. why doesn't hep want congress to talk to